Yulia Iosilzon: Entangled Pluralism

Victoria Miro Projects is delighted to present Entangled Pluralism by London-based artist Yulia Iosilzon. This is the twelfth project in an ongoing series of presentations by invited international artists. Working across painting and ceramics, Iosilzon constructs immersive environments in which figures and landscapes exist in a state of continuous transformation. Drawing on art historical, biblical and mythological references, her new body of work unfolds as fluid, allegorical spaces where narrative remains open and meaning emerges through association. Recurring motifs – such as suns, arcs and organic forms – shape compositions, animating the surface ‘almost like a living ecosystem of symbols and signs,’ says the artist. Throughout the exhibition, figures appear as changeable presences within expansive, dreamlike terrains, while environments fold in on themselves, merging sky and landscape. ‘The original image is undone and remade, a possible metaphor for becoming, the opened-ended transformations of humans, animals and their environments towards which so much of Iosilzon’s practice is turned,’ writes Rebecca Birrell in a new text accompanying the exhibition. The specific method of painting onto individually shaped, ceramic tiles is a recent development for Iosilzon. ‘There is an element of surrender in the kiln, and like the soak-stain technique of Helen Frankenthaler — an important touchstone for Iosilzon – there is an openness to risk and its unexpected rewards,’ Birrell notes. These ceramic parts are then carefully assembled into structures that echo the artist’s initial drawings, a process that is ‘energised by [the] balance between the unpredictability of glaze experimentation and the necessary precision of the paintings’ architecture.’ Through these complex, interlocking forms, the works offer a continuously shifting field in which perception blurs and singular meaning remains out of reach.